HEALTH officials got suspicious when they found that the clothing budget for patients at a mental health unit was overspent by £18,000.

A regional NHS fraud investigation team was called in and discovered that the unit administrator had been fiddling claim forms and buying some of the clothes for herself.

Deborah Rothwell, of Chadderton Drive, Sunnybank, Bury, was accused of more than 300 offences of false accounting, totalling nearly £18,000.

At Manchester Crown Court Rothwell (30) pleaded guilty to 16 of 29 charges, amounting to £1,170, and on Monday was ordered to complete 200 hours of community service.

Rothwell has since left the employment of the Salford NHS Trust where she worked as an administrator in the adolescent forensic unit in Prestwich. She had joined in 1986.

The court heard that it was in September 2001 that the unit's clinical nurse manager was told that the clothing budget was "substantially overspent".

Rothwell had responsibility for authorising cash reimbursements for staff expenditure on patient clothing and it was found that 300 request forms had been submitted. Staff denied knowing anything about them.

Rothwell was arrested in January 2002 and police who searched her home found many of the items of clothing claimed for.

Mr Jim Gee, chief executive of the Counter Fraud and Security Management Service which investigated Rothwell, said this week:

"The sentence shows that the NHS will not tolerate those who try to abuse it. All fraud, no matter how small, deprives the NHS of resources needed for patient care and the continuing improvement of NHS frontline services. A 98 per cent success rate for prosecutions, and a 40 per cent reduction in fraud losses, shows that those who try to defraud the NHS will not go unpunished."